May the wind stay at my back and may angels give me wings to fly.

I started avidly running in April of 2007, 8 weeks after my little boy was born. I was only running about 15 miles a week just to lose baby weight but a friend of mine was thinking of running the Honolulu Marathon. I made the bold move of doing it with her with the simple goal of just to finish. I finished my first marathon in 2008 with a time of 5:13. In 2009 I started running more miles, up to 40 a week when my schedule would allow that much. I signed up for my second Honolulu marathon and finished with a time of 4:48. That was with only 6 weeks of training, two of them being taper weeks. I finished with tears of joy and one other thing, the strong desire to run every runner's dream...BOSTON! I have some real good days and some real bad days but I hope someone finds inspiration in my spirit and strength. If you dig deep enough you will find the strength to do whatever your heart desires. "Don't follow your dreams...CHASE THEM!"

I am a mother of two, a wife, a full time student and last but not least...a runner. I am 35 years young and feel that I have many more ahead of me (God willing). Other than running I am a student majoring in Biology with a minor in Chemistry, with the hopes of one day going to med school.
My husband is in the Navy and we have two children, a boy and a girl. My daughter is 5 and my little boy turns 3 in February. My kids have grown up seeing me run and everytime I go out they want to go with me. Many times they have been in the stroller for a 9 mile run (lucky for me they fell asleep!)
Right now I live in Hawaii and have been here for 4 years now. It is truely paradise and I will miss it greatly when I leave to go back to Virginia. Hawaii holds many memories for me and a part of my spirit will always remain here.

Training Widget

Monday, February 1, 2010

Training 17Jan-1Feb

Every week I am seeing results of my training. By January 17th I had lost half an inch in my hips and 3/4 in my waist. As for my running, well that's going well too! My first week of training, the day after my fartlek's I was supposed to run 6-8 miles. Well, the first week I was only able to do 4 in the morning and very sluggish and I did another 3 that evening but a little faster but still stiff. The following week for that same run I was able to do 6 in the morning, a little slower than normal but at least I was able to complete the mileage. My speed work that previous day I had also pushed myself harder during the 7 miles with a slow pace of 9:30 and my fast pace increased from 8-8:30 to a 7:50-8:20 and it seems to be staying in that range the past couple weeks. We'll see how I do this week. I also notice that my comfort pace has increased from a 9:30 to a 9:09-9:12. Amazing. I never thought I would see the day... I still have a long ways to go but I'm anxious to see how well I can maintain a fast pace for my 8.1 mile race coming up this President's day. I would like to hold a 8:30-8:45 but who knows what will happen. My adrenaline always takes over during a race.This week I'm starting to implement some new exercises in along with my normal ones to help get rid of a little more in the hips/waist area. I've also learned to "not sweat" a bad day that my legs just don't want to go out. If they need the break I need to give it to them. I'm working myself hard every run and trying to do the pace I am told to do so sometimes they get pretty tired no matter how much protein they get. On top of studying for school, running around with the kids and doing my own running thing, I get a little exhausted. But it's okay, I come back strong and that's what matters.I have a lot of motivators on Dailymile and they inspire me on every run. Each person has an "it" factor that drives me to push harder. Now time to go ice my ankles from a 7 mile morning run, then a 3mile hike pushing a 5 and 3 year old in a stroller yesterday then getting up this morning to get my 6 miles in! Ouch!